Charleston-based energy healer Christian McClellan uses Reiki, sound baths and spiritual community events to help folks clear energetic blockages and tension in the body.
“Whatever it is that we are looking for — the healing, the peace, the creativity, the love — it’s not a matter of finding something that’s out there missing,” he said. “It’s about clearing off the layers of the judgments, the fears and the anxieties. It’s a game of subtraction rather than addition.”
Energetic healing work is a holistic practice that is said to activate the body’s subtle energy systems to remove blocks. By breaking through these energetic blocks, the body’s inherent ability to heal itself is stimulated.
People have studied the body’s energy centers for thousands of years — the seven chakras, the energy transmission centers of the body, were first described in ancient Hindu texts.
Many ancient cultures used different modalities to stimulate the body’s natural ability to heal, (Reiki, sound healing, acupuncture) with the common recognition of the power of internal energy. Energy healing is based on the principle that matter is made of molecules, and even things that are solid are vibrating all the time. This theory says that as humans, we, too, are vibrating.
These are the principles that McClellan employs in his practice, called Sacred Soma, a downtown studio where he works with clients one-on-one to remove energetic blocks and facilitate healing. He also hosts community events. Many clients first discover McClellan’s work through his regularly occurring sound baths at Redux Contemporary Art Center, which often coincide with new and full moons to spark deep meditative experiences.
McClellan, who is a certified Reiki master himself, said a Reiki master “isn’t someone who has mastered Reiki, but it’s someone who’s been mastered by Reiki,” which hints at his own journey with energetic healing.
Forging a spiritual path
McClellan first took a meditation class in 2003 as a sophomore in college — though his spiritual journey began in earnest 10 years later and continues to evolve. After college, he worked as an attorney in Washington D.C., then San Francisco, a time during which he said he experienced a lot of internal turmoil.
“I had a problematic relationship with alcohol and a lot of emotional stuff that I just sort of was distracting myself from or turning myself away from by self-medicating. I quit drinking in December of 2012, and soon after that, I felt this crushing emptiness that was a need to connect with something bigger than me.”
He was experiencing a “stuckness” that he now recognizes as what is called in Hindu texts “Vairāgya,” a general sense of dissatisfaction with the material and a need to find something bigger — a calling to the spiritual. This began a period of spiritual seeking which led McClellan to the teachers who would change his life.
“There’s this old saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” McClellan said. He found his first teacher, Swami Khecarnatha Nathaji through a Google search, and it turned out his studio was just six blocks from McClellan’s home. “He opened my heart, and he gave it to God,” McClellan said.
“But the neat thing about these processes is, as far as I can tell, it’s an awakening that starts within us. And before we are conscious of it, that awakening energy within us is drawing in all of the nourishment, all of the resources that it needs.”
He became invested over the next 10 years in learning Kundalini meditation, Reiki and sound healing. He said there are many routes to seeking out energetic healing, but it’s often found through suffering.
But there are other ways to find this awakening, he said. “There’s pure curiosity. There’s the artist’s way, in wanting to connect to deeper creativity.” It all starts with letting go of ego-based thinking through finding a deeper state of presence — which can be found through meditation, Reiki, sound baths and other modalities.
“The ego begins when we open our eyes at birth. All of our senses say, ‘I’m separate, I’m in need of help,’ and that’s natural for a child, but that separatist way of thinking keeps us stuck in adulthood,” McClellan said. “My work is getting to unwind some of that stuff.
“And seeing this unraveling, seeing these things start to awaken in my clients is so gratifying. This has been such a gift … and I just want to share it.”
Access his work through the donation-based sound baths at Redux or find out more
at @sacred.soma.chs on Instagram or sacredsomaspace.com.
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